EPTMy idea has always been to move the research for warpgate to twilight council and to make it more expensive. You'd still want to get it eventually, but it would cost you and delay some all-ins. With the mothership core available, you would have the more sensible system of having recall available early game, which gives you the ability to move out on the map aggressively, while having warpgates designed for later in the game, where with multiple bases around you'd have legitimate uses for it.
Levelling the Playing Field - Page 3
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
My idea has always been to move the research for warpgate to twilight council and to make it more expensive. You'd still want to get it eventually, but it would cost you and delay some all-ins. With the mothership core available, you would have the more sensible system of having recall available early game, which gives you the ability to move out on the map aggressively, while having warpgates designed for later in the game, where with multiple bases around you'd have legitimate uses for it. | ||
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Caihead
Canada8550 Posts
On November 05 2012 21:58 Grumbels wrote: I can never understand how warp-ins are different from reinforcing with zerglings or roaches. Because it bypasses all terrain in between? If there was a cliff or units blocking your way you can't magically teleport zerglings or roaches behind them. It's not "speeding up" slightly. Warpgates basically make island / cliff maps so much easier for protoss to harass and defend with tier 1 tech in comparison with other races, which is why we don't even see them any more. It used to be a big deal watching every dropship in BW because you needed those to bypass static defenses and travel distances. Every unit in a dropship / shuttle / overlord was important because there was no hope of reinforcing those units with out moving your army strategically. Now it's an entirely different story. The best metaphor is this: in BW, it was a huge deal for zergs to get down nydus canals in between bases to transport units, and sniping nydus networks was a big deal for the attacking terran / protoss because it would cut off reinforcement in between bases. Even though you can still reinforce across the map in a few seconds, it was a huge deal because the terran / protoss can cut off reinforcements in the middle of the map. Some of the most memorable moments from BW resulted from clever usage of nydus canals for offensive purposes. With the warpgate and a probe / warp prism you can achieve that effect with out even microing unit moment into canals, that's how much of a difference it is. | ||
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AmericanUmlaut
Germany2580 Posts
On November 04 2012 03:17 Antylamon wrote: I just had an idea... how about making Pylons upgradable? Kind of like the Dark Pylon or whatever in WoL alpha, except it allows you to warp in units there. With a cost of some minerals and some gas (perhaps 100/100), then you can warp in as many units as you want there. Or Gateways could be buffed so that unit build time is equal to that of Warpgate cooldown and nerf Warpgate so units cost more when built there. I've been thinking for the last couple of months that this would be a decent solution to the Warp Gate problem. It might be worth experimenting with a mechanism like the Sensor Tower has that causes a deployed warp-in pylon to be visible to the opponent. The combination of both would make it so that deploying a warp-in pylon would create this super sharp timing where you'd get an instant wave of units, but you'd be forced to defend the pylon to continue reinforcing your attack (contrast with the current situation where you can just throw down several Pylons for a negligable cost), and once the attack was repelled you'd have a guaranteed resource loss similar to what happens after other proxy attacks. Making the warp-in mechanic require Pylons to deploy at some sort of cost would also be a big nerf to 4-gate play, since any kind of gas investment would reduce the number of Stalkers you'd be able to warp in. | ||
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Sawamura
Malaysia7602 Posts
On November 05 2012 22:34 Caihead wrote: Because it bypasses all terrain in between? If there was a cliff or units blocking your way you can't magically teleport zerglings or roaches behind them. It's not "speeding up" slightly. Warpgates basically make island / cliff maps so much easier for protoss to harass and defend with tier 1 tech in comparison with other races, which is why we don't even see them any more. It used to be a big deal watching every dropship in BW because you needed those to bypass static defenses and travel distances. Every unit in a dropship / shuttle / overlord was important because there was no hope of reinforcing those units with out moving your army strategically. Now it's an entirely different story. The best metaphor is this: in BW, it was a huge deal for zergs to get down nydus canals in between bases to transport units, and sniping nydus networks was a big deal for the attacking terran / protoss because it would cut off reinforcement in between bases. Even though you can still reinforce across the map in a few seconds, it was a huge deal because the terran / protoss can cut off reinforcements in the middle of the map. Some of the most memorable moments from BW resulted from clever usage of nydus canals for offensive purposes. With the warpgate and a probe / warp prism you can achieve that effect with out even microing unit moment into canals, that's how much of a difference it is. Well to reinforce the bolded part of the statement in cailhead quote .. here is a vod where shine just out shines the Flash. Professional Broodwar I miss you T_T. edit : grammar ... | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Since Blizzard can't just reinvent the wheel and change the basic way highground works, I think they should just add features that block flying unit's vision. If these features were placed at the edge of cliffs, it would allow unit on the highground to shoot down without taking return fire. These features should also prevent cliff walkers from moving up them. These types of cliffs already exist in SC2, but do not block flying unit's sight. Adding these features would add depth to the map, without changing the game's core or basic features of combat or gameplay. | ||
Falling
Canada11367 Posts
Hm, ranking in order of importance is interesting. I think I'd agree with economy being at the top. But I think I'd combine economy with macro mechanics. I personally see them as different sides of the same coin. Income comes in waaay to rapidly and you are able create troops way too rapidly. This leads to situations where best play can means maxing on drones and roaches by what? 12 min? or is it down to 10 min? Or Terran maxing at 14min (Flash game, I think.) That's just insane. There is are less incentive to move out and take positions. Individual unit control is de-emphasized in place of maxing and re-maxing. It's just too extreme. Probably also why Zerg can't have 1 supply units anymore and zerglings are so weak by BW standards. I would see that as pretty foundational change. But even if that were fixed, I don't think it would properly change the battlefield to make for more interesting micro opportunities. More incentive perhaps, but the tools aren't necessarily there. So economics gives the strong base, but Microbility and Unit Spacing/Magic Box moves the game from a solid RTS to a competitive game for players and viewers. The importance of high ground comes more into play when it isn't so easy to max armies on a couple bases and units are very microable. Then you have reason to move all over the map and then you want it easier to defend positions. I'm not sure where I'd put Warp-Gate because it just messes with everything. Overkill is possibly not as necessary, but opens up new avenues of play. This is more important when units over-all are more microable and the emphasis isn't on maxing by 12 min. Cliff-walking. Cliff-walking just needs to get out of the early-mid game. It's too powerful there. I could reasonably see it in the late-game, but even then I think drop play (whether harass or mass) is superior to having units native ability able to jump over cliffs. I think that would generally be my order although I'm not sure about warp and cliff-walking. On a side note, I'd also throw in "smart casting". I haven't talked about that yet, but I think a lot of the spells that people have problems with, wouldn't be near so bad with normal casting. (Debatable if magic box casting replaced it however.) @RenSC2 I don't think Watch Towers are a bad idea. I just don't think they changed the game that much. Or rather, high ground advantage has a far more powerful effect on the game. I don't agree with the -range change though. Once you close the gap (easy to do with blink for instance,) then you're in the same position as before. Damage reduction is superior imo because it always exists until you finally gain the high ground. @Daswollvieh I strongly disagree that unit clumping makes the game more viewable. Sure you can see the mob vs mob light show. But it's very difficult to discern the individual parts. Especially when tourneys leave the healthbars on. (Healthbars are on top of units and cover up units behind rather than in BW where they were underneath.) Further...+ Show Spoiler + Current ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GYcsk.jpg) Potential ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GnvyA.jpg) Now you could tweak it a bit because I think the second one is a little too hard to see with the workers' healthbars, but I think it's the right idea. Taken from here: http://sc2pod.com/trackers/blue/starcraft-2/?id=4199 See the problem is any army with depth, the overlap that you see is just more healthbars where the actual unit is hidden. This is further exacerbated with unit clumping. I think it also has to do with our tendency (at least in English) to read from the top of the page to the bottom. I'm pretty sure we perceive what's on top before what's on bottom. With it on top, it just looks way too busy and it's hard to register the individual parts you are seeing as it just becomes a mass of green, yellow, and red lights, combined with attack animation. A more spread out battle may take up a couple screens, but it's easy to parse what is going on. I don't actually think that SC2 is as viewable for a newbie as people make out. I think that applied to BW, but I don't think it transferred wholesale to SC2 (especially with some of those dark tile sets.) It's more viewable then many other competitive games, but a lot of battles are a big mess of lasers, healthbars, and big mob vs mobs. Very cluttered in other words. | ||
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Caihead
Canada8550 Posts
On November 06 2012 00:39 Sawamura wrote: Well to reinforce the bolded part of the statement in cailhead quote .. here is a vod where shine just out shines the Flash. Professional Broodwar I miss you T_T. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-NHVdG6r3w edit : grammar ... it's so unfortunate because you would think that with all of these added mechanics that the play would become much more exciting, yet it's had the exact opposite effect. Warpgates made it so there's no difference prioritizing defense or offensive and you could do what ever you wanted. Before the beta came out I was thinking like "man with all these amazing new low tech tools we are going to see all kinds of crazy low econ builds and 1 base beating 2+ bases" like the 1 base plays of terran / protoss in the olden days of BW. Another problem too is how each unit becomes significantly less important when they clump up, only contributing a small part of ridiculously high dps blobs. Only the most knowledgeable players can look at the number of stalkers on the field and the number of scvs at a bunker to know whether they can take it down in time, where as in broodwar it was immediately obvious with each round of projectiles from each singular unit, how many dragoons it takes to wear down a bunker with how many scvs repairing, and so on. The timings become so fudged and insignificant, there's almost zero noticeable difference between a 5 tank push out or a 4 tank push out against zerg as terran where as in BW the 3 tanks and a science vessel timing was so pivotal. I can't even get excited behind how a push is coming even with more tools given to the audience like the production tab, because even as someone who's watched a shit load of games I can't bloody make out the difference between a 30 roach + unidentifiable amount of lings push or a 40 roach + unidentifiable amount of lings push. Like look at this game at the 8 minute mark: Every single lurker movement and action was important, as was the moment of every marine, despite only being like 15 pops worth of units the moments of this small group is vastly more interesting than anything I've seen in the past few days even with flash playing in the mlg and my massive fanboism. If this was SC2 it would just be 5 infestors fungaling a group of marines and they die. Or instant warpins at the 2 o'clock base and the marines die. | ||
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snively
United States1159 Posts
On November 04 2012 01:53 Falling wrote: Or else: Flattening the Terrain did anyone else read "flattening the terran" ? | ||
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nunez
Norway4003 Posts
i strongly feel the high ground vs low ground mechanic would add to the game. personally i would prefer damage reduction, but i think one option is as good as the other. buffing smaller defending forces through terrain advantages would make splitting up your units less risky and reward multitasking. my only concern is that leenock and gumiho would be overpowered. | ||
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Falling
Canada11367 Posts
Yeah, even when I was editing, I did a few double takes because I thought it said Terran. Thinking a little more on what is most important. I think if you kept the current economic system and macro system and then added high ground advantage, it would actually compound the problem. It would be even easier to turtle to 200 on a handful of bases and even more worth it to just sit there maxing and remaxing. A game of throwing armies at each other to see who wins the war of attrition. First you need the incentive to move out on the map more. Then you need the ability to hold those forward positions better. I also agree about adding worker wandering rather than just simply making less mineral patches per base. The reason why is (I'm pretty sure) there is a much softer cap on how many workers is most efficient on each base. Worker wandering gives more incentive to expand just like lower resources would. However, I hate, hate, hate the "you have 23/24" workers idea. Not the displaying of the numbers. But just that there is one and only one right way to play. Any variance and the player is getting in the way of the game. You hit 24 and that's the maximum that you should ever have mining. Yeah it was usually most efficient to mine 2.5 workers/ patch for Protoss in BW, but there was still some benefit to over-saturating. More than there is in SC2. I think these are the Mineral/Worker charts thread I was thinking of http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=83287 There might be a better one. | ||
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surfinbird1
Germany999 Posts
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Daswollvieh
5553 Posts
On November 06 2012 07:21 Falling wrote: @snively Yeah, even when I was editing, I did a few double takes because I thought it said Terran. Thinking a little more on what is most important. I think if you kept the current economic system and macro system and then added high ground advantage, it would actually compound the problem. It would be even easier to turtle to 200 on a handful of bases and even more worth it to just sit there maxing and remaxing. A game of throwing armies at each other to see who wins the war of attrition. First you need the incentive to move out on the map more. Then you need the ability to hold those forward positions better. I also agree about adding worker wandering rather than just simply making less mineral patches per base. The reason why is (I'm pretty sure) there is a much softer cap on how many workers is most efficient on each base. Worker wandering gives more incentive to expand just like lower resources would. However, I hate, hate, hate the "you have 23/24" workers idea. Not the displaying of the numbers. But just that there is one and only one right way to play. Any variance and the player is getting in the way of the game. You hit 24 and that's the maximum that you should ever have mining. Yeah it was usually most efficient to mine 2.5 workers/ patch for Protoss in BW, but there was still some benefit to over-saturating. More than there is in SC2. I think these are the Mineral/Worker charts thread I was thinking of http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=83287 There might be a better one. If you want to encourage expanding for more efficient income, with oversaturating remaining a sensible possibility, you could look at Empire: Total War. There you have trade routes that create less income per unit for every unit added. In SC2 that could mean e.g.: - One worker on a patch mines 5 minerals - Two workers on patch mine 4 minerals each Of course, because the income is determined for workers individually there is very little wiggle room, since 1 more/less already is a huge deal. If expansions would simply generate income per worker, instead of worker per patch with individual values per patch, it would be a lot easier, like: - 8 workers mine 500 minerals per minute - 16 workers mine 900 minerals per minute - 24 workers mine 1300 minerals per minute - 32 workers mine 1700 minerals per minute (of course that´s just some numbers to show the gradual decrease) Mineral lines could also have a total value to keep workers busy and disappear all at once when drained. If you´d then lift the limit of workers able to mine one patch you could "power"-mine out an expansion in shorter time, creating a new situation (with less efficiency of course). | ||
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Daswollvieh
5553 Posts
If your design goal is to encourage movement on the map, which should be incentivized by the economic advantage additional bases give, it is true that defense should offer an inherent advantage. The more advantage a defensive position offers, the more players can spread their units and more importantly their bases, since reinforcement would become a less pressing issue, when defenders would hold out longer. When regarding an expansion as a whole (base+workers+defense) durability is the key issue. Expansions fall quickly without the main army in range to protect it, so we have maps like Ohana and Entombed with basically 3 bases put in one defensive complex. Based on what Falling said about the lack of movement restriction through cliffs, the only other limitation you can put on the attacker, without touch its core stats, is sight, both range and visibility. So to make an expansion more durable, the attacker either must be slowed considerably, or put in a fighting disadvantage by restricting sight and visibility. Rocks are there for slowing down, but fail, since they can be destroyed fairly quickly. Limiting the maximum dps to rocks would be a possibilty, as would a slowing effect on the attacker. Less clumping would lead to slower progression through chokes, as would reduced speed up ramps, which seems rather arbitrary. Limiting sight and thus visibility could offer a significant advantage to defenders. The main problem is the ubiquity of flying units which also happen to have the highest range of sight. So: - reduce sight of fighting units --> creates necissity for light scouting units - reduce sight of non-scouting flying units and/or increase range of AA defense, so you can screen yourself from sight. --> Attackers up ramps are are at a bigger disadvantage. Cliffs protect defender better from visibility. - increase range of sight from high ground --> increased high ground advantage, while low ground units depend on spotting, high ground units are self-reliant. - increase attacking range from high ground --> defenders are shelled before gaining sight of the enemy. Defenders are significantly more efficient than attackers, when positioned correctly. - BW´s misfire from low ground --> samesame Of course, when buffing high ground for defense it could create a situation where all expansions require high ground to be defendable. Could become kind of stale for map makers. | ||
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Masayume
Netherlands208 Posts
It would: -Slow down mining (this would have to be paired with a duration change in the mining rate itself) -Increase the effectiveness of AOE spells (bad positioning and engagements get punished much harder) -Increase the defenders advantage through slower reinforcement paths, plus having more time for certain upgrades or static defence to finish. It would also take a deathball longer to reach the enemy, who has his reinforcements spawn so close to where they need to be, that the slower movement doesn't affect them nearly as much. -Allow for more micro during battles, such as marine vs baneling I don't have time to expand these thoughts right now, or sum up the cons but it seems to be a pretty easy way to make things more bearable, without having to change the fundamentals of the game,which is most likely what Blizzard wants to avoid. I could be entirely wrong and facepalm when I get back and reread my train of thought though..  Edit: It would make the game feel too slow, so nvm T_T | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
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